Hindsight is 2020-Part Two
by CatLady4
Summary: In part one, Elrond gave the dwarves smartphones. Once they found cat videos they lost all interest in Erebor (and anything else) but the Interwebs. Now Gandalf contemplates his next step and Sauron investigates social media. This story stands alone so you don't have to read Part One to enjoy it.


_This follow up tale was inspired by Certh who wondered what Sauron would post to social media.  
_

* * *

 **#Sauron#ForceofEvil#DarkLord**

There were days when Sauron would sell his soul (if he had one) for a pair of hands. Sometimes, being an amorphous figure of omnipotent evil had its drawbacks. For one thing, he couldn't knock someone over the head. Oh sure, he could blast them into oblivion with the flick of one figurative finger, but somehow that wasn't quite as satisfying.

Once again he regretted his lack of a body. If only he hadn't let that puny mortal slice his Ring off. He had been this close (he mentally placed two mental fingers a fraction of a mental inch apart) to defeating that miserable rabble of Elves and Men. Next time they wouldn't be so fortunate. When he regained the Ring, he was going to create the best body anyone had ever seen, no doubt about it. It would be hu-u-uge, hu-u-uge!

'Where are the Hands of Sauron?' he bellowed (mentally of course). This reminded him he would need to appoint a Mouth sometime in the near future.

'Here we are, Your Malevolence,' two orcs scurried into his presence and prostrated themselves where his feet would be if he had feet.

'And the Eyes and Ears, where are the Eyes and Ears?' Four more orcs prostrated themselves with groveling obeisance.

Sauron found it convenient to have others perform the more boring duties of his body parts. The hands were an obvious necessity. There was no way he was going to tote and carry like a mere mortal, mentally or otherwise. The Ears and Eyes dealt with this new social media that seemed to be required today. Everyone was chatting, posting, twitting and snapping endlessly. He couldn't be bothered with the morass of the Interwebs, but his minions could. Constant monitoring was required so that nothing was missed, but sometimes (who was he kidding, most of the time) the inanity was too much to bear.

'What is new?' he queried.

The Eyes rushed forward much to the dismay of the Ears. Sauron tended to hate to hear the same thing twice, and sometimes it was a struggle to come up with something original.

'We saw pictures of a raid in the Misty Mountains, Your Evilness,' the first Eye stated.

'It was very bloody,' said the second.

Not to be outdone the Ears yelled, 'There was shouting and the clang of swords. We heard cries in Dwarvish.'

The Eyes countered with, 'Well, we _saw_ dwarves. They were fighting with the Goblin King.'

The Ears knew they would never win against the Eyes who had so much more access to information these days. No one ever listened any more. 'Yes, well, we think someone important died,' they muttered and tried to be unobtrusive.

The Eyes crowed, 'There were pictures of the Goblin King's body. It was quite gruesome!'

Sauron watched as his appendages fought to outdo one another. It always warmed his heart to create strife. However, this was not good news. 'Dead? The Goblin King is dead? Who? Dwarves?'

'No, not the dwarves. Some old man with a pointy hat. Looked like one of those wizards, but the pic was blurry,' an Eye stated.

'No video? There must be a video somewhere. Everybody has a camera these days,' Sauron stated.

The Hands scurried over and held up a tablet. 'Here, Evil One, we have this!' they cried in triumph at beating the Eyes. At first, Sauron watched as the Goblin King played with a ratty group of dwarves threatening and teasing the leader. Then suddenly the video shuddered and shook as a flash of light burst across the room. The dwarves recovered their weapons, the king was shoved off the platform and chaos reigned.

Sauron watched closely and finally identified the miscreants. 'It is that miserable Gandalf and some of Durin's spawn! What are they doing there?'

He was distracted from his question by what was now showing on the screen. The Hands had forgotten that the video was only one of several set on auto-play. Sauron's voice came ever so softly, ever so gently to caress the ears of the screen holders with threatening venom. 'What is _this_ , Hands?'

The Hands froze in terror. Only in that moment did they remember and quiver in fear. The first Hand, realizing its life was in jeopardy, threw itself down where Sauron's feet would have been had he had feet. 'C-c-cat video, Your Horribleness, please forgive this miserable creature. It should have been deleted long ago.' The second Hand nodded vigorously in agreement.

Again Sauron wished for real eyes so that he could narrow them and glare at his slaves. 'You know the punishment do you not?'

'The Death of a Thousand Licks, Your Maliciousness. But please, it was an oversight. We have not watched it in ages.'

The DTL was a horrible fate. The offender was strapped to a table, smeared with tuna juice and a herd of cats was set loose. Orc hide being very tough, it took the cats (and a lot of juice) a long time to reduce the guilty party to a quivering pile of goo and bones.

'You are lucky I do not wish to train new Hands. Surrender a leg each and I will call it even.'

The orcs whispered their thanks and contemplated which would be the better leg to lose.

'Now begone, I need to think,' Sauron dismissed them.

'One last thing, oh Dark Lord,' the Ears dared to say.

'Yes?'

'There are rumors of a raid upon Your Mightiness here at Dol Guldur. Something about a White Council has been floating around the Interwebs for the last week or so.'

'Ah, at last. I have been waiting for just such a move. Are we ready in Mordor?' Sauron asked.

'Yes, Your Vileness, almost. There is of course more building to do, but the place is habitable,' the Eyes said.

'And what about these dwarves? Do they have any part in it, or the old man?'

'We do not know, Your Mightiness, about the man, but as for the dwarves, they are no longer a problem,' the Eyes assured their master.

'How can you be so certain of that, Eyes?' Sauron queried.

Normally this comment would have sent the Eyes into paroxysms of fear lest they be wrong, but for once they were positive. 'The dwarves have become captives to, uh, um…' here the Eyes hesitated to continue given the Hands recent error and forthcoming punishment.

Sauron once again wished he could glare. 'Spit it out, Eyes! Captive to what?'

'Cat videos, Most Obnoxious One. The elf lord gave them phones and the bear man showed them cat videos,' the Eyes finally managed to stammer.

'HA! See? Have I not warned you all to beware of those furry beasts? They will tempt you, corrupt you and enslave you if you are not careful! I once dreamed of making them part of my dominion. Some queen long ago found them useful as spies, but it was not to be. They have their own plans for world domination! _No_ videos! It is the first step in their masterful plan.' Sauron counted himself lucky to have escaped the felines' plot. 'Now get out of here and make sure you delete those damned videos!'

The orcs bowed their way out of the chamber, fortunate to be alive and in almost one piece. When the first Eye pulled out his phone and started deleting videos, the second Eye watched in horror. 'You can't get rid of Cole and Marmalade, Brishnakh! Those are my favorites.'

Brishnakh smiled at his partner. 'Of course not. This is just for show, Aklash. I have them all backed up at home!'

* * *

 **Gandalf's Second Thoughts**

Gandalf watched as the dwarves disappeared down the road toward the Shire. To the very last he could see them tripping, falling and bumping into each other. Despite his warnings and all they had gone through, they were still glued to their smartphones without regard to anything else. He had washed his hands of the whole group now and assumed they couldn't get in too much trouble between Bree and their homes.

Shaking his head, he retired to the inn for a well deserved mug of ale. It was a minor miracle that they had made it back as far as Bree. Only by confiscating (okay, stealing) half of the phones, had he been able to pry them away from the peace of Beorn's. The fact that the bear man had finally run out of patience and begun chasing them in bear form had also helped.

Once on the road, the ones without phones had pushed and shoved those with phones to move along. The faster they returned to the Blue Mountains, the quicker they would be able to get replacement phones. It hadn't' hurt that Bilbo had been mostly immune to the phone trap and spent the vast majority of his days whining about his books and gardens. Everyone ran any time he approached. Fortunately they had met no trolls and the goblins were too busy fighting among themselves over who got to be the next Goblin King to worry about a pack of bumbling idiots crossing the mountains.

Gandalf made certain they gave Rivendell a wide berth. He still hadn't quite forgiven Elrond for the phone trick in the first place. While the dwarves busied themselves with their new toys at Beorn's, he had ventured to the south end of Mirkwood to meet up with the other members of the White Council to deal with the Necromancer. Upon seeing Elrond, it was all he could do not to smite him.

'I hope you are happy, Elrond,' had been the wizard's first words.

Sensing Gandalf's ire, Elrond had refused to meet the wizard's eyes. He knew very well what grief his gift had caused. The phones he had bequeathed to the dwarves were the very ones he had confiscated from his own elves. The things were worse than anything Sauron had ever inflicted on Middle-earth! None of his people were allowed the damn things unless there was a true need.

Guiltily Elrond finally looked at him. 'I needed to get rid of them, Gandalf. They were corrupting my own people. Do you know how hard it is to get an elf to pay attention when he has one of those demon phones? I only allow my most trusted to have them now.' Somewhere off to his left a phone began to warble.

'Glorfindel!' Elrond cried. 'How many times do I have to warn you? Turn the phone off! No, better yet, give it to me!'

Glorfindel rode his horse slowly up and reluctantly produced the phone. 'Please let me keep it, Lord Elrond. I'll keep it off, I promise.'

Elrond reached out and tugged at the phone. On the third try he was able to pry it loose. 'I've heard that far too many times. Three days this time, Glorfindel. You may have it again in three days.'

Glorfindel turned away crestfallen. 'Very well, my lord, but it is going to seem like a lifetime.'

Gandalf watched in amazement. That even an elf as powerful as Glorfindel should fall under the phone spell! It showed just how dangerous they were. 'And yet you gave them to dwarves? They have little or no control such as the elves possess; how did you expect them to act?'

'Better for you to deal with it than I, Gandalf. And besides you know I was not in favor of that Erebor venture from the very start. Be glad they are alive even if addicted to phones. It could have been much worse.'

Now it was Gandalf's turn to look guilty. 'Yes, yes, especially since they would have had to continue without me into Mirkwood. Perhaps you were correct. But you still owe me one!'

* * *

Now that his carefully laid plan to check on Smaug had been destroyed, he needed to decide what to do next. Was it worth the trouble to round up yet another group of gullible dwarves? Thorin had been his best bet since he was actually the heir to Erebor, but certainly there were other greedy folk that he could tempt.

The first sip of ale glided down his throat. Then again, now that the Necromancer had been defeated, what was the point? The North was no longer the strategic issue it had been a few months ago. (A slight twinge of doubt slithered across his mind, but he ignored it.) Perhaps he might even return to the Grey Havens and go into the West. Lords knew he deserved a rest. Two thousand years was long enough in Middle-earth.

A second sip followed the first as he tallied his victories of late. Goblin King dead. Check. Dwarves on the road home (safely he hoped). Check. The Necromancer defeated at last. Check. What else was left? There was that ring that Bilbo had found, but he was sure it was only some trifle left over from an earlier time or perhaps one of the lost dwarf rings. He would worry about it another time. Now if only he could score some pipe weed, he would be set.

An annoying buzz interrupted his thoughts. Damn. His own phone rattled on the table where he had dropped it. It looked like yet another update of Facetime or that damn Twitting account. Why had he allowed the dwarves to suck him in? He would look at it later.

* * *

 **A Most Uninviting Invitation**

 _Ah, it was good to be home!_ Away from the decay of Dol Guldur and comfortably ensconced in good old Mordor. Sauron sighed happily.

Even though he had fled from the White Council, he considered it a victory. Unnoticed, he had managed to drain a certain amount of energy from his foes for his own use. Now if only he could decide on a final form. He had tried so many things, but none had really pleased him. There was only one left to try.

Slowly he allowed himself to assume the shape. As soon as he was done, he knew it was a mistake. Too powerful and terrible for even his magnificence, he melted back into indistinct smoke.

But still, there had been something…. What about? He tried again. Yes! Perfect.

Sauron summoned his minions. 'What do you think?' he asked. He didn't care what they thought, of course, but it was nice to see their cowering reactions. 'Good. Now it is time to let all of Middle-earth know of my return.'

The Hands of Sauron teetered into the room on one leg each and watched as he transformed into the new, terrifying shape. One Hand began snapping photos while the other furiously composed a new post. The Eyes and Ears stood ready to take in the response.

Sauron watched it all with yet another regret. All powerful as he was, he would never be able to take a Selfie…

* * *

 **So Now What?**

Gandalf took one last swig of the ale and picked up the noisy phone. The ale immediately reappeared as he spewed it across the table. Sauron was alive and back in Mordor! And hosting an open house? The wizard hated to think what would happen to any attendees. All thoughts of rest and relaxation fled.

The screen was awash in one topic and one topic only. Sauron. From the Twits: Sauron, #ForceOfEvil #NewLook #DarkLord #OpenHouse #SavetheDate. From the FaceTime: 'Hey White Council, it was a blast (lol) seeing you once more. We need to do it again real soon at the new and improved Mordor! Be sure to attend my Open House to see all the updates I've made. In the meantime, take a gander at my new look.' Numerous others followed but Gandalf needed to read no further.

Instead, he scanned the pictures that were flooding across the screen in between the taunting messages. Filling all available space was a giant glowing Eye. Gandalf's brow wrinkled as he tried to figure out why it looked so familiar.

He looked up and saw the inn's cat staring back at him. Ah, of course, a cat's eye. He wondered if the felines were going to be okay with this misappropriation. Perhaps for once, Sauron had bitten off more than he could chew...

 _Please feel free to come up with your own postings for Sauron. I am curious to see what else he has to say._


End file.
